Strip-searching women in prison is state-sanctioned sexual abuse and it must end
By Sara S
Prisons are full of women who have already been failed by systems meant to protect them. To subject them to further sexual violation in the name of safety is indefensible, writes lived experience advocate Sara S.
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In Australia, we know what sexual violence looks like. We know its harm. We have laws against it, services to support survivors, and national conversations about consent and respect. The data shows us that one in five Australian women have experienced sexual violence, and nearly one in three have experienced childhood sexual abuse.
Yet in our prisons, the state continues to authorise a practice that replicates sexual abuse and re-traumatises thousands of women every year.
Strip-searching is so normalised within Australian prisons that its cruelty is often invisible. For women — particularly those who are survivors of sexual violence, and research shows that up to 90%of women in custody are — the experience can be devastating.
A strip search means being ordered to remove every piece of clothing. It means squatting, coughing, spreading, shaking out your hair and opening your mouth. It means completely exposing yourself to strangers under the justification of “procedure”.
When I was incarcerated and subjected to strip searching, I told two female officers that I was feeling vulnerable and traumatised. One replied, “How do you think we feel? We don’t like doing this either.” That answer stayed with me, revealing the personal discomfort of those required to carry out these acts, and the collective moral failure of a system that normalises them..
These searches are justified as necessary to prevent contraband, but there is no credible evidence that they work. In fact, the ‘End strip searching in Australian Prisons’ report, launched this week by a collective of formerly incarcerated folks, FIGJAM, Flat Out and the Human Rights Law Centre, shows that the use of strip searches is entrenched across Australian prisons but rarely (less than 1% of the time) do they uncover dangerous items. What they succeed in doing, with absolute consistency, is inflicting humiliation and trauma. So what purpose do they serve? And why do we keep doing them?
The vast majority of women in prison will one day return to the community. The degradation, control, and disconnection they experience inside shape the lives they rebuild when they leave. Fear of being strip-searched stops many women from seeing their children or partners. Maintaining family connections is one of the strongest protective factors against re-offending; when that link is broken, the cycle of imprisonment deepens.
Over the years, minor policy tweaks have been dressed up as reform — allowing women to remove one item of clothing at a time, for example, and remain partially clothed. But there is no “humane” version of a strip search. The violation is in the act itself. Whether performed by men or women, or one item of clothing at a time, it is state-sanctioned and state-perpetrated abuse.
This contradiction — that our justice system punishes sexual violence in the courts while practising it in prison — exposes the deep hypocrisy at the heart of our prison system. It’s the illusion that we can create safety by reproducing harm.
We have the technology to end this. Less invasive alternatives to strip searches, like body scanners remove the need for nakedness. Prisons overseas have adopted them. In Australia, the use of safer alternatives remains the exception, not the rule. The persistence of strip searches says less about ‘security’ and more about control.
The reasons women end up in prison are well known. Women in custody overwhelmingly come from backgrounds of disadvantage. First Nations women, women with disabilities, mental health conditions, and those who have survived violence and poverty, are disproportionately incarcerated. Many have used alcohol and other drugs to manage their pain or trauma.
When these women are subjected to more harm inside, we are not reducing crime; we are compounding it. They are less likely to develop the tools required to manage their lives and their trauma differently and more likely to become entrenched in the justice system with diminished trust in the ability of the state to support them.
This is not a marginal issue of prison management. It is a fundamental question of human rights and public safety. The more traumatised a person becomes inside, the harder it is for them to recover, reconnect, and rebuild on release. Punitive practices like strip-searching do not make communities safer; they perpetuate cycles of despair, addiction, and imprisonment.
There is another way. Programs run by community and women’s organisations — like Flat Out, FIGJAM, and many others across the country — show that dignity, care, and accountability can coexist. When women are treated as people, not problems, they heal. They reconnect with their families and communities. They stay out of prison.
Prisons are full of women who have already been failed by systems meant to protect them. To subject them to further sexual violation in the name of safety is indefensible. Ending strip-searching is not radical; it is the bare minimum of a humane criminal legal system.
As long as the law allows this power to be exercised in such degrading ways in state settings, we are sanctioning abuse. If we are serious about ending sexual violence in Australia, we must end all sexual violence — including that perpetrated under the authority of the state.
About the author
Sara S
Sara is a lived experience advocate and member of the Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melbourne (FIGJAM) collective.
I would like to reiterate that Im certainly not saying the trauma does not translate to men and boys (of course it does), I know men and boys are sexual abuse survivors too, I am family off, friends with and know of many males that are sexual abuse survivors, though it is the week of International Womens Day (IWD) and I can speak to the experience from the lens of a formely incarcerated woman and sexual abuse survivor and how this degrading practice was retraumatising
Thankyou for sharing your experience Sara and I hope it gets attention where it matters. We see you xx